Bang Your Head: The Rise and Fall of Heavy Metal

I read this back to back with _Sound of the Beast_ by Ian Christie and was pleased to find that they (mostly) cover different material. The first thing you'll notice is that except for obligatory coverage of Black Sabbath, Zepplin, AC/DC, Kiss and Metallica, this book focuses mostly on the LA metal scene, AKA the MTV Bands. This may leave you wondering, "Where the heck is the Black Metal?" even though Konow does cover Venom somewhat, as the progenitor of this style. Europe is pretty much ignored, and it'll probably feel like your favorite band got short shrift. Furthermore, the writing isn't very smooth - the book is mostly a collection of anecdotes and factoids. X did this, Y said that, Z was released and did well but not well enough...With all that said, though, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. The fact density means that you're learning new things every page, at least if, like me, you weren't really into the scene itself, just the music. And if the book had been as wordy as _Sound of the Beast_, it would have been twice as large without giving you much more information. I had no idea Gene Simmons was born Chaim Witz in Israel. Funny bits like Henry Rollins's description of how bad Venom was on tour ('I expected them to break into Sex Farm Woman at any moment') amused me quite a lot.Furthermore, Konow's concentration on a smaller population of LA Bands gives this book more depth than Chistie's in several areas. _Sound of the Beast_ just mentions that Quiet Riot's first cd sold 4 million, their second 1 million. Finis. _Bang Your Head_ goes into all the scheming and politics behind this, why their second record doing 'only' 1 million was a disaster, and how Quiet Riot leader DuBrow shot himself in the foot repeatedly.Even though I never particularly cared for the hair bands (which is what most of the LA Bands were, especially in the tarnished Golden Age of MTV Metal), you certainly couldn't escape them, and it's quite fascinating to find just /how/ self-centered and talentless a lot of them were. Find out just /how/ bad a bass player Nikki Sixx was. Learn why Guns 'n' Roses hasn't released _Chinese Democracy_ yet after almost a decade, though Axl's put $8 million into it. Konow also touches on bands that never quite broke through, like Dokken and Armored Saint, and the whys and the wherefores.So read _Sound of the Beast_ for a global but shallow view of metal, and then _Bang Your Head_ for a more in-depth focus of a few of the bands and more of the Why instead of the What. I had a hard time setting either down.

When it went on over two pages about bon jovi I chucked it out the window.

I got into this book because I thought it would help me better understand what made metal so popular and what changes made it fall. It talked a lot about the bands backgrounds and them arguing and splitting up, and a lot of things that made me bust out laughing. I couldn't wait til the end because I thought he would have began analyzing Metal and what it needs to do to pick back up because today's metal is nothing like it used to be. The book concludes saying something along the lines of Metal fell we don't know why, someone needs to re-spark it....It did talk about MTV and grunge coming along, just nothing from his own perspective on how to re-spark Metal.So when you get into this book just know that it's gonna just tell you about the rise and fall, nothing more.Only leaving me bummed out about old Metal.

El tema es tan extenso que es imposible abarcarlo todo. pues siento que no haya hablado a profundidad de bandas como Iron Maiden o AC/DC. No esperes mucho información sobre la historia del Grunge ya que definitivamente no se puede considerar parte del heavy metal. La forma de narrar es muy amena porque va saltando de banda en banda y en diferentes etapas de su vida artística. Muy buen libro.

This is THE truly quintessential insight in to Heavy Metal, the performers, and the culture of the times.A GREAT read!

The origins of some of the greatest music the world has ever known, how it grew, where it was going, and where it went. this book explains it all.

It's an enthralling book to read because all the stories about these bands I love are so fun. However, I don't love how the author didn't put endnote numbers in the book for his citations; it makes finding his citation more difficult. I also think the author should have been more clear about when something is proven to have happened vs. when he just got a story from Guitar Magazine. Just because a roadie said it, doesn't mean it's true. If these types of stories were differentiated in the book, it would be easier for the reader to understand what's what and make their own decision on what's likely to be true. Still, it's engrossing and I'm going to read the whole thing because not enough people write about heavy metal!! So, thanks David Konow. :)

terrific book

Great read, covers very well the subject

you would have to write a few books about the decline of metal and this book mainly focuses on the US Glam metal scene of the eighties the author's experience but anyway since its one of the scenes i like and i am not interested in other things such as the story of the death metal scene in say Romania and the development of Thrash metal in Slovenia...I bought it.The book is quite complete, it begans with brief introductions on the grandfathers of the metal scene such as Led Zepellin or Deep Purple up to what happened in the disastrous nineties decade. There are a couple of faults in the book, author claims that Europe did not take in Glam well which isn't really true, England for example Glam had a strong following as with most of Northern Europe even Spain (where i live) had a few "hair" bands and Bon Jovi, Europe and the few Glam bands that came supporting major metal acts were moderatly successfullThe negative thing about this book is that the author stresses that there was no conspiracy against the eighties metal bands coming the nineties but that is exactly what happened, Record companies and MTV started promoting Grunge/Alternative and most of the eighties bands not only found themselves without a record contract but were slammed on TV. The idiotic Beavis and Buthead being the most obvious case but not the only one, i remember there was this advert for MTV from 1996 which was divided on two, one it showed what is cool and some heroin addicted looking model was posing on a sopha and what is "out"showed Poison's "Nothing but a good time video" so lets stop being politically correct and admit the truth, the media promoted Grunge and went after the eighties metal scene. The way something so boring, depressing, talentless and ugly as Grunge becomes popular is in the same way tomorrow someone like Claude Jeremiah Greengrass can be branded a sex symbol people can get manipulated easily and that is how Grunge became popular because of overpromotion of MTV.

Vous pourrez agrémenter vos biographies et autobiographies, ce livre incroyable vous apportera dans une suite à peu près chronologique l'indescriptible ascension et renaissance (après 1000 disparitions) de ce milieu si pointu, si ouvert et également si humain.On se dit qu'au final, avec toute l'admiration que je voue à ces groupes, je n'aurai que très peu voulu vivre leurs vies. Un panel de joies, d'excitation, mais aussi de compromis, de douloureuses séparations, et de rapports émotifs violents.Mais à la lecture de ce joyau, la passion pour ces groupes n'en est que grandissante